services which the State will render in the new order; by the habit of military discipline which universal service in the ranks will create; and by the mere fact that as the feelings lose a sufficient object in Church, city, or family, they will tend to concentrate themselves upon the fatherland. It remains to consider what effect the new importance of the State may have upon personal energy and independence of thought. The strength of the State can hardly be more than the sum of strength in its individual members; and it is at least conceivable that we may get political organisations which are more complete than have ever yet been—that is, which attempt more and do more—but which are yet deficient in the spiritual reserve which an older and more imperfect society possessed in the initiative and resource of its members. To take examples from history, let us assume—merely as a hypothesis—that modern society is tending more and more to the form of society that prevailed under the Incas, and that such men as Drake and Frobisher, Clive and Warren Hastings, are likely to become rare and disappear.
The initial perplexity of such an inquiry is, that it is extremely difficult to avoid the conclusion that energy of character may assert itself in certain epochs with apparent disregard of political institutions. Athens in its best time was a country in which the limitations of originality in thought or action were enormous. To be suspected of entertaining new views about religion was dangerous, and impiety was charged against statesmen like Pericles and Alcibiades, philosophers like Anaxagoras and Socrates, as effectively as if they had been statesmen of the seventeenth century in Europe. To be wealthy was to be suspected of peculation, and to be powerful was to invite ostracism. The general
